I did a series of dilutions on the nitrate out of morbid curiosity. This was the reading at 1/64th of the original concentration:

Did an incredibly slow drip (pretty much all day) and he just chilled out in the bucket like a champion.

His tank really just has the basics at the moment. Bit bummed out that his secondary filter has probably fallen through (Filstar XP3 - meant to get it last Sat), but he needs another filter. If that sale doesn't work out he'll get an AC110 on Friday. He currently has an Eheim 2217. Tossing up between just leaving him with his pipe, replacing it with driftwood or using both.

Being the size he is the 5x18 footprint should be alright for a while in theory, but he's a much bigger fish in attitude already so I think he will need a 5x2x2 as soon as possible ( I got a new job so Mr. Lamm can't complain about the cost ). See the video - he had been in his tank for <20 minutes when it was taken. I don't know why Mr. Lamm tried to give him pellets that night . Got him eating bloodworms but he still won't touch anything pellet related as of today. Also has a weird tic where he won't touch food if you're watching him.

UNC-CH replied the topic: I got a Jag too

Way to go on the rescue! That's a good looking jag. It looks to me like the water had nitrate of ~ 650ppm - 1300ppm Unbelievable. If that's hith around the nostrils, I'm pretty sure it'll heal up in your care.

Sometime I'll get you to explain how you have this drip method setup. I can understand how critical it would be in a situation like this.

Rogue_Violetta replied the topic: I got a Jag too

UNC-CH wrote: Way to go on the rescue! That's a good looking jag. It looks to me like the water had nitrate of ~ 650ppm - 1300ppm Unbelievable. If that's hith around the nostrils, I'm pretty sure it'll heal up in your care.

Sometime I'll get you to explain how you have this drip method setup. I can understand how critical it would be in a situation like this.

It's surprisingly simple, actually. You'll think to yourself, "Why didn't I think of that?" when it's explained. I'll let Lamm explain it though, because she's better at it than I am, lol.

Keeper of the Food Pellets of Malekith the Never Accursed, Lover of Bubbles and Airstones, and Beloved of the Rogue Violetta.

Lammergeier replied the topic: I got a Jag too

Thanks everyone.

@Ben: Thanks. Tbh it isn't really a new job, but 2 sort of new, sort of old jobs. I'm still in the fish lab but now getting paid for it, and was asked to come back as a tutor for first year ecology again (with pay raise, woo, and possible 2nd pay raise depending whether the unit chair can twist payroll's arm for me and the other tutor). So financially in a pretty good spot at the moment, so I can completely negate the increased income by spending things on fish stuff

@UNC: Yeah I know. For drip acclimation, I just run an airline hose from the tank (so new, dechlorinated water) to a bucket that's hooked up to a battery powered airstone and siphon water from the tank to the bucket. When the bucket's half full I take out half the water and just keep it running for as long as it takes. I have a little valve that controls the flow rate, but you can just knot the air-line tubing or use a peg/clamp. Rocksor goes by TDS, and said in the Freddy thread that he drips 50% volume new water in every 30 minutes if the difference in TDS is >100ppm, until there's <50ppm difference between old and new water.

I don't have a TDS meter yet, so I try and get water parameters very close to the same (using nitrate as a guesstimate for organic waste and GH and pH has an estimate of other solids). In the case of this guy I did a very slow drip (one drop every few seconds) for ages due to the massive difference in parameters indicating to me that the TDS would also be massively different. Once I have a TDS meter I'll adopt Rocksor's method fully for any future ones. I slowly increase the drip rate as the water parameters become similar.